Sumith Prasad
In Edward Berger’s thriller film ‘Conclave,’ Vincent Benitez is a Mexican cardinal who arrives in Vatican City to participate in the papal conclave convened to elect the next pope. Since his appointment as the cardinal of Kabul, Afghanistan, has been a secret, his presence at the gathering raises eyebrows and doubts. However, it does not take him a long time to become an impressive candidate himself. While the obvious choices battle against each other to become the most popular leader in the world, he stands by his principles without showing any ambition for the throne. As the movie concludes with a shocking revelation, Benitez becomes a highly intriguing character who deserves an exploration into his roots! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Vincent Benitez is a Fictional Character Who Personifies Progress and Change
Peter Straughan wrote ‘Conclave’ based on Robert Harris’ book with the same title. The fictional source novel puts forward why and how the institution of the Catholic Church needs to align with progress and reformations to accept and accommodate the various sorts of believers worldwide. Cardinal Vincent Benitez personifies these reformations and progress. It is through his identity, gender, and selection as the elected head of the Catholic Church that the novel emphasizes how the Christian institution should move ahead from doctrines created over two millenniums ago. Harris created Benitez without an exact real-life counterpart inspiring him.
In the history of the Catholic Church, no intersex person has become the pope. Harris started creating Benitez after reading the gospels, which were “revolutionary” for him. He observed that the same contradicted “this great edifice of ritual and pomp and power and wealth” of the Catholic Church, which motivated him to conceive an intersex character who challenges the traditional notions of the religious institution. “There’s also this question of can you freeze anything at a point nearly 2000 years ago? Haven’t the world and humanity evolved?” Harris added to TIME.
Benitez symbolizes the evolution of humanity, which paved the way for the worldwide emergence of queer people in various avenues, challenging and breaking stereotypes. Since the Catholic Church has always adhered to the binaries of biological man and woman, the presence of a pope-approved cardinal with male and female reproductive organs is a personification of change. Through ‘Conclave,’ both the novel and its adaptation, Harris and Edward Berger raise the question of accommodating and accepting queer people by moving forward from rules and doctrines conceived more than two thousand years ago.
Conclave Addresses the Relationship Between the Catholic Church and the LGBTQIA+ Community Through Vincent Benitez
Since the inception of the Catholic Church, the religious institution has had a tumultuous relationship with the queer community, especially with the transgender and intersex sections, since they challenge the traditional understanding of the male-female binary. In April 2024, the Vatican deemed the gender-affirming surgery as a “grave violation of human dignity” that discards “God’s plan” for human beings. The religious institution also reportedly approaches “genital abnormalities” as something that can be “resolved.” Within this context, Pope Vincent Benitez is a revolutionary figure or a human form of “change.” He does not see his uterus as a problem that needs to be removed or resolved.
Benitez embraces his existence as an intersex person as God’s creation that shouldn’t be interfered with, which convinces him not to undergo a laparoscopic hysterectomy, especially after being elected as the pope. The presentation of a supreme Catholic head who accepts himself as a queer person, for Harris, is a change with immense consequences. “I thought, dare I do this? And then I thought, well, yes, because any other outcome is just tame, really. I wanted to write something that was dramatic, that was on a scale of the huge dimensions of this election,” the author added in the same TIME interview, explaining the inspiration behind the creation of Benitez.
Ultimately, ‘Conclave’ is a narrative that advocates the need to accommodate the evolution of humankind and the challenging views that emerge along with it. That’s why Cardinal Thomas Lawrence wishes to see a pope who rises above the certainties of the institution and creates a dialogue with faith through opposing perspectives. Vincent Benitez, a Mexican queer pope, was created as an answer to such a wish.
Read More: Where Was Conclave Filmed?
